Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates in general to a spectrally encoded endoscope (SEE), and more particularly, to three-dimensional endoscope design and image reconstruction process for a spectrally encoded endoscope.
Description of the Related Art
The first endoscope was invented more than 50 years ago and consisted of a bundle of optical fibers. Since then, significant progress in minimally invasive surgeries and thereby reducing the risk of complications, costs, and recovery times has been made.
With the advent of inexpensive and miniature CMOS sensors which are mainly used in smart phones, endoscopes are shifting from fiber bundles into designs with imaging sensors at the distal tip of a probe. One significant drawback on these CMOS sensor based endoscopes is the tradeoff between the scope diameter and the resolution. The spectrally encoded endoscope (SEE) is one of the smallest endoscope that has shown a great potential for the use in minimally invasive surgeries. The original SEE system is designed for side view applications. Due to its smaller diameter of only several hundred microns, the probe itself is much more flexible compared to other scopes available on the market. However, currently, the SEE probes provide distorted two-dimensional view of a target to be imaged. It is desirable to provide a stereovision or even three-dimensional (3D) vision of the target using SEE technology without increasing the diameter of the probe.